The cost to make San Bernardino International Airport passenger ready for airlines has risen to $92.4 million and will likely rise again.

On Wednesday, the elected officials who make up the board for the Inland Valley Development Agency overseeing the redevelopment of the former Norton Air Force Base approved spending another $5.93 million to finish the airport.

Steve Poizner and Ken Miller, candidates for the Republican nomination for governor, will address a San Gorgonio Pass Republican Women Federated meeting 11:15 a.m. Wednesday at the Elegant Affair in Banning.

The cost, including lunch, is $17. Lunch is optional.

Reservations are required. Call Lois Jordan at 951-845-1147 or Helen Enriquez at 951-849-0671.

A Fontana recycling plant owner has filed a $100 million federal lawsuit against the county, alleging it has held his application for an operating permit hostage the last three years in an attempt to shut him down.

Alamo Recycling owner Michael Mendonca said he has been ensnared in bureaucratic red tape since he applied for an operating permit in November 2007, more than a year after he purchased the property in December 2006.

Thirty-one schools in the San Bernardino area received the lowest statewide ranking for performance on standardized tests, according to data released Thursday by the California Department of Education.

Schools in San Bernardino City Unified, Fontana Unified and Colton Joint all saw a ranking of one on their Academic Performance Index for 2009.

A central narrative of Republican Steve Poizner’s gubernatorial campaign has been his entrepreneurial prowess: the engineering grad who got a master’s from Stanford, made a fortune in Silicon Valley and turned his wealth and talent to public service.

Underscoring the theme, Poizner describes himself on next month’s primary election ballot as “businessman,” although as state insurance commissioner since 2007 he’s essentially been a government regulator.

Shortly after Jerry Brown became California’s attorney general, a lawyer with a conservative property-rights group urged him in a letter to drop a global warming lawsuit against automakers.

Brown read the letter and promptly called the lawyer, M. David Stirling, counsel to the Pacific Legal Foundation. Although Brown refused to drop the suit — “He strongly believes in the global warming thing,” Stirling said — the two men reminisced about the old days in the late 1970s and early ’80s when Brown was governor and Stirling a Republican assemblyman.

After losing $500 million on a controversial New York real estate deal, CalPERS is being asked to put more money into the same property.

A New York City councilman is urging the California pension fund to participate in a tenant-led buyout of a Manhattan apartment complex – the same complex that cost CalPERS $500 million and damaged its reputation as a socially responsible investor.

With three weeks remaining in the close GOP race to replace Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), candidate Carly Fiorina has put an additional $1.1 million of her personal funds into her campaign.

When combined with the $2.5-million loan she made to her campaign last fall, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive has now lent $3.6 million of her own money to the effort, according to her spokeswoman.